An open letter to Europe

We’ve been watching you for the past few years, and all we see is you hurtling from one crisis to another. If you were a person, we’d nominate you for a makeover on Queer Eye. And if the past couple of centuries have taught us anything, it’s that this is usually a precursor to you getting that funny feeling in your stomach again – you know, the one that makes you want to start an internal conflict that involves the whole world?

Not that it’s been all abysmal. The EU Parliament recently passed the GDPR, a privacy law that’s among the strongest in the world and that protects the personal data and citizens’ privacy for all transactions that take place in the EU. That was cool. But then your Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted to essentially make memes illegal, requiring all major sites to scan user uploads – photos, text, music, videos – for copyrighted material. Without Friends or GOT memes, Black Panther GIFs or dubbed videos of Ronaldo scoring a goal with background Malayali commentary, our lives are meaningless.

Individually, you’re doing even worse. Greece, for example: You’re just a hot mess. You’re still dealing with the aftermath of a horrible financial crisis precipitated by excessive government spending on kebab skewers and post-meal plate smashing. Just as that blew over, you’re back on the streets trying to bring down your government over allowing the Republic of Northern Macedonia to use that name. Sheesh.

Which brings us to you, Italy. You started the horny-toad-as-leader-of-government trend, which resulted in Signor Cheetoface getting the keys to the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. That alone should give you pause. But clearly not. Now, you want to deport 500,000 illegal migrants, with your interior minister Matteo Salvini stating: “The good times for illegals are over… Get ready to pack your bags.” Yeah, let’s keep putting racist bigots in powerful positions. What could go wrong?

Hungary, as Europe’s weird uncle, you could probably tell us a thing or two about that. Look, we get it. You hate brown people. But immigrants aren’t coming to your shores to take anything from you. In fact, most of them just need to transit through your country to get some place better. Which makes you less final destination, more highway McDonald’s.

And let’s not forget England, our darling Blighty, the tiny island that gets approximately five days of sun a year. You can’t even make decent margarine without the rest of the world’s help, and you think you can Robinson Crusoe this shit? Going at it alone post-Brexit is like trying to put Liam Payne as the face of One Direction. What exactly was his thing? Oh yeah… Nothing. Harry Styles was the obvious superstar. Louis, the cheeky one. Zayn, the ladies’ man. Niall, the mysterious one. What purpose did Liam serve? He just stood there while the rest of the people with actual talent went about their business. England, that could be you.

Finally, Germany. What happened? The rest of the world had a rocky start with you, but we assumed that you’d exorcised all those demons and were turning over a new leaf. You were supposed to be our new rock: the titular head of the most liberal democracies in the world. Instead, you turned on poor Angela. She saved the country from political chaos, saved the continent from financial ruin and was ready to retire and spend the rest of her days sitting on a hardened bench, gruffly staring into space. Instead, she fought another election, another term as Chancellor, so that she could limit the damage America would do to the world. And you had to go and ruin that too.

Look, Europe, you need to get a grip. You can’t implode at the very moment that the world most needs you to stay together. Why not learn from your Scandinavian contingent and bring some hygge into your life? And if that doesn’t work, and you still have pent-up fury against each other, remember: That’s what club football is for.